NINTH REPORT

From the SELECT COMMITTEE (of the House of Commons) appointed to take into consideration the state of the Administration of Justice in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to report the same, as it shall appear to them, to the House; with their observations thereupon; and who were instructed to consider how the British Possessions in the East Indies may be held and governed with the greatest security and advantage to this Country; and by what means the happiness of the Native Inhabitants may be best promoted. (25th June, 1783.)

I. OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THE COMPANY'S AFFAIRS IN INDIA.

In order to enable the House to adopt the most proper means for regulating the British government in India, and for promoting the happiness of the natives, who live under its authority or influence, your committee hold it expedient to collect, into distinct points of view, the circumstances, by which that government appears to them to be most essentially disordered; and to explain fully the principles of policy, and the course of conduct, by which the natives of all ranks and orders have been reduced to their present state of depression and misery.

Your committee have endeavoured to perform this task in plain and popular language, knowing that nothing has alienated the House from inquiries, absolutely necessary for the performance of one of the most essential of all its duties, so much as the technical language of the Company's records; as the Indian names of persons, of offices, of the tenure and qualities of estates, and of all the varied branches of their

intricate revenue. This language is, indeed, of necessary use in the executive department of the Company's affairs; but it is not necessary to parliament. A language, so foreign from all the ideas and habits of the far greater part of the members of this House, has a tendency to disgust them with all sorts of inquiry concerning this subject. They are fatigued into such a despair of ever obtaining a competent knowledge of the transactions in India, that they are easily persuaded to remand them back to that obscurity, mystery, and intrigue, out of which they have been forced upon public notice by the calamities arising from their extreme mismanagement. This mismanagement has itself (as your committee conceive) in a great measure arisen from dark cabals, and secret suggestions to persons in power, without a regular public inquiry into the good or evil tendency of any measure, or into the merit or demerit of any person intrusted with the Company's concerns.

Present laws

East India

its internal and external policy.

The plan adopted by your Committee is, first, relating to the to consider the law regulating the East India Company, and Company, as it now stands; and secondly, to inquire into the circumstances of the two great links of connexion, by which the territorial possessions in India are united to this kingdom; namely, the Company's commerce; and the government exercised under the charter, and under acts of parliament. The last of these objects, the commerce, is taken in two points of view, the external, or the direct trade between India and Europe; and the internal, that is to say, the trade of Bengal, in all the articles of produce and manufacture, which furnish the Company's investment.

The government is considered by your committee under the like descriptions of internal and external. The internal regards the communication between the court of directors and their servants in India; the management of the revenue; the expenditure of public money; the civil administration; the administration of justice; and the state of the army.The external regards, first, the conduct and maxims of the Company's government with respect to the native princes. and people dependent on the British authority; and next, the proceedings with regard to those native powers, which are wholly independent of the Company. But your com

mittee's observations on the last division extend to those matters only, which are not comprehended in the Report of the Committee of Secrecy. Under these heads, your committee refer to the most leading particulars of abuse, which prevail in the administration of India; deviating only from this order, where the abuses are of a complicated nature, and where one cannot be well considered independently of several others.

Second at

by parliament

tion.

Your committee observe, that this is the second attempt made by parliament for the reformation tempt made of abuses in the Company's government. It ap- for a reformapears therefore to them a necessary preliminary to this second undertaking, to consider the causes, which, in their opinion, have produced the failure of the first; that the defects of the original plan may be supplied; its errors corrected; and such useful regulations, as were then adopted, may be further explained, enlarged, and enforced.

Proceedings of

The first design of this kind was formed in the session of the year 1773. In that year, parlia- session 1773. ment, taking up the consideration of the affairs

of India, through two of its committees, collected a very great body of details concerning the interior economy of the Company's possessions; and concerning many particulars of abuse, which prevailed at the time when those committees made their ample and instructive reports. But it does not appear, that the body of regulations enacted in that year, that is, in the East-India act of the thirteenth of his Majesty's reign, were altogether grounded on that information; but were adopted rather on probable speculations, and general ideas of good policy and good government. New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of constitution. Checks and counter-checks of all kinds were contrived in the execution, as well as in the formation, of this system, ir. which all the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share for parliament appointed the members of the presid ing part of the new establishment; the crown appointed the judicial; and the Company preserved the nomination of the other officers. So that if the act has not fully answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode

of patronage in their appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere.

Powers and objects of act of 1773, and the effects thereof.

The act had in its view (independently of several detached regulations) five fundamental objects:

1st, The reformation of the court of proprietors of the East India Company:

2dly, A new model of the court of directors, and an enforcement of their authority over the servants abroad:

3dly, The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the natives from the oppressions of British subjects:

4thly, The establishment of a general council to be seated in Bengal, whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British settlements in India:

5thly, To furnish the ministers of the crown with constant information concerning the whole of the Company's correspondence with India, in order that they might be enabled to inspect the conduct of the directors and servants, and to watch over the execution of all parts of the act; that they might be furnished with matter to lay before parliament from time to time, according as the state of things should render regulation or animadversion necessary.

prietors.

The first object of the policy of this act was Court of pro- to improve the constitution of the court of proprietors. In this case, as in almost all the rest, the remedy was not applied directly to the disease. The complaint was, that factions in the court of proprietors had shown, in several instances, a disposition to support the servants of the Company against the just coercion and legal prosecution of the directors. Instead of applying a corrective to the distemper, a change was proposed in the constitution. By this reform, it was presumed, that an interest would arise in the general court more independent in itself, and more connected with the commercial prosperity of the Company. Under the new constitution, no proNew qualifi- prietor, not possessed of a thousand pounds capital stock, was permitted to vote in the general court: before the act, five hundred pounds was a sufficient qualification for one vote; and no value gave more. But as the lower classes were disabled, the power was in

cation.

creased in the higher: proprietors of three thousand pounds were allowed two votes; those of six thousand were entitled to three; ten thousand pounds was made the qualification for four. The votes were thus regulated in the scale and gradation of property. On this scale, and on some provisions to prevent occasional qualifications, and splitting of votes, the whole reformation rested.

The ballot.

Indian interest.

Several essential points, however, seem to have been omitted or misunderstood. No regulation was made to abolish the pernicious custom of voting by ballot; by means of which, acts of the highest concern to the Company, and to the state, might be done by individuals with perfect impunity: and even the body itself might be subjected to a forefeiture of all its privileges for defaults of persons, who, so far from being under control, could not be so much as known in any mode of legal cognizance. Nothing was done, or attempted, to prevent the operation of the interest of delinquent servants of the Company, in the general court, by which they might even come to be their own judges; and in effect, under another description, to become the masters in that body, which ought to govern them. Nor was anything provided to secure the independency of the proprietory body from the various exterior interests, by which it might be disturbed, and diverted from the conservation of that pecuniary concern, which the act laid down as the sole security for preventing a collusion between the general court and the powerful delinquent servants in India. The whole of the regulations concerning the court of proprietors relied upon two principles, which have often proved fallacious; namely, that small numbers were a security against faction and disorder; and, that integrity of conduct would follow the greater property. In no case could these principles be less depended upon than in the affairs of the East-India Company. However, by wholly cutting off the lower, and adding to the power of the higher, classes, it was supposed, that the higher would keep their money in that fund to make profit; that the vote would be a secondary consideration, and no more than a guard to the property; and that therefore any abuse, which tended to depreciate the value of their stock, would be warmly resented by such proprietors.